Beachspotting – a people watcher's guide to Scottish seaside life

Some seaside cultures come and go, but one activity that’s always to be found on a sandy beach is sandcastle building. Parents pass it on to their children. Kids just seem to have an instinct for doing it anyway. No one is really sure when, back in the mists of time, the first sand castle was built. But we can say castles have been built on Scottish beaches for decades. A Fife Herald article from 1856 declares: "Let him bathe and puddle in the water - let him build sand castles on the beach.” Of course, we can fancy it up. We can hold competitions, like the one that will take place at the Crail festival on July 28. We can call it “sand art”. We can try to build the biggest one ever – the world record is held by a 16.84 metre high construction, built in Duisburg, Germany. But proper sand castle building isn’t about all that. It’s simple play – messing about in the mud.

Stone stacking

Is this the new sandcastle building? Or a strange new cult that is overtaking our beaches? The last year has seen these mysterious mini towers of rock increasingly colonise shores up and down the country. Mostly that’s due to the passion of one man, James Craig Page. Last year the artist set up the European Stone Stacking Championships in Dunbar, and the craft has spread like loom bands and fidget spinners since. You can barely throw a stone these days on a beach without it knocking into some piece of quarzite precariously balanced on top of an old fossil. "It’s like a creative meditation,” Craig Page says. “As soon as you start to practice this and engage in it, you go into this very meditative state and you don’t think about the future – you’re just totally in the moment.” He has even started doing workshops with children in schools. “It’s been remarkable. A lot of the children that are least attentive in the class, that have been labelled with ADHD seem to get it. My dream is to get this into the national curriculum in Scotland and across Britain.”

Paddleboarding

The rise and rise of paddle boarding can be witnessed around the coast of Scotland. This is the mellow water sport, for those who don’t want to get salt up their nose or serious windburn. It’s also possible to do paddleboarding while striking a downward dog or some other yoga positions. In fact, stand up paddle board yoga is a thing. Yoga guru Michaella Robb runs classes in it on the Dundee waterfront. But, if you’re braving the choppy waters of the sea, just standing up might be enough of a challenge.

Beach cleaning

The sea is full of plastic. The beach is a tip – litter on Scottish beaches rose by six per cent last year. Of course, we can spend our time moaning about it while we lie on our beach mat sipping from a plastic bottle, but it’s also possible to do something – and many are. Beach cleaning is, very nearly, a form of beach leisure activity, and most who do it find fun as well as virtuous. Surfers Against Sewage earlier this year organised the Big Spring Beach Clean which resulted in volunteers around the UK removing 64,000 tonnes of marine plastic pollution from our coastlines. Marine Conservation Society Scotland coordinates regular beach cleans. Catherine Gemmell, the young campaigner who plans them, says interest in ocean plastics has "skyrocketed" in the past few years. "This September we are running our 25th Great British Beach Clean – can we make it the biggest one yet?" Gemmell observes that beach cleans are often surprisingly competitive. "The friendly competition sets in pretty quickly, from who found the most, the heaviest, the weirdest or the smallest items."

Hut posing

Sitting in front of your £25,000 beach hut – the reported price of, for instance, huts in Findhorn Bay - is a very nice activity for those who have the wherewithal to indulge in it. If, as it happens, you don’t, one alternative is to set your deckchair, or some other fancy-looking beach prop, up in front of someone else’s hut, which does not appear to be in use for the day. That said Scottish beach huts are really a snip by comparison with those you get in some parts of England, where you can pay up to £295,000 for a hut in Dorset with no electricity or running water, but enough room to sleep six.

Lying down on the sand and doing nothing

One of the most popular and enduring of beach pursuits. This can, of course, be done on a beach towel, or scratchy rug, but, for full luxury, it’s necessary to get out that sun-lounger – begged, borrowed or stolen – that hasn’t seen the light of day since the hottest day of 2017 and lug it all the way down to the sand. By the time you’ve got there you’ll be dripping sweat all you’ll want to do is collapse there for the next few hours – preferably with a cold beer. You will also need a nice book, to use as a nose shade once you’ve read a sentence or two.

Beach barbecuing

A beach outing is incomplete without the smell of smoke and the sizzle of sausages over charcoal. Because, of course, though it’s hot, for us Scots it is clearly is not hot enough. A beach day requires at least some sauna-style sweating over a grill. Given this, once the sun is out, the rush is on. If you’ve not got a barbecue yet, you may need to brawl your way out of the shop with the last one. But which one? The gas barbie? The charcoal bucket? Or one of those trendy, schmancy Lotus Grills? The choice can be paralysing. One thing however is clear – which one you shouldn’t get. That would be the disposable barbie that just creates waste and is also a hazard on the beach, if left there – and has, as news stories testify, accounted for more than a few child foot burns.

Taps aff

There is a difference between sunbathing and taps aff. The former involves sensible amounts of sun cream, a relaxed attitude and some relatively sober lounging. The latter is all about a disregard for all decorum and a sticking two fingers up to body fascism, as well as the nanny state who would have you protect yourself from skin cancer. Taps aff can also be done while there is not really enough sun for sun bathing. While it can be done on the beach, it’s not strictly a beach activity, and actually has much greater impact when done on the high street or outside a pub. On a sizzling day, taps aff is like saying to the sun, “Oy, you up there, pal! Aye, you, sun. I can take you.”

Surfing

We have, in Scotland, some of the best surfing beaches in Europe. The only problem is they’re at their best in the colder months, from September through to May, when the sea is glacial. But still, you can catch a good wave in Scotland, even in the summer. Thurso may be where people go for World Class surfing, but a surf scene is developing in many other parts, from Pease Bay to the beaches of Tiree or Islay. As Iona Larg, who runs Blackmountain Watersports on Tiree points out, there’s a nice family surf culture developing on the island. Youngsters are growing up learning to surf at their “wee surf club”, families are coming for their holidays – her son, Ben, is even a champion surfer. “In some other places like Bali,” she says, “surfing is ultra-cool. It’s the beautiful people. But here in Scotland you’ve got to wear a 5mm wetsuit and it can be Baltic, so it’s not about that. The result is the culture is super inclusive and we’re always happy to see other people.”

Wild swimming

There’s been a lot of talk about “wild swimming” in recent years – in Scotland, virtually, any swimming in the sea, or even paddling above thigh-level, is what most would call wild. Scots have become so spoilt by their Mediterranean holidays that it’s now hard to imagine our idea of fun might have been a dip in one of those now crumbled tidal swimming pools that dot the coast. But proper warm, swimming days do come, and we’ve had some of them recently. In any case, when they are not here, there are always hardcore wild swimmers who are willing to take on the chill, come sun or snow, like the Wild Ones, a group dedicated to sea swimming in Portobello.

Beach baristas and feral foodies

Wherever you go in today’s world, you’re rarely more than a short walk away from a cup of artisan coffee – even when you’re on a beach. It used to be you would be lucky if your favourite beach was honoured by a visit from a Mr Whippy selling van – even luckier if it had blood sauce. But these days, beaches are turning into foodie and coffee paradises. If your local beach hasn’t got a trendy new beach café – like the in an old at Cramond – or shack, then it had better be served regularly by some sort of gourmet-mobile. Vans like the Little Green Van, often stationed at Portobello, Chantilly Bleu in Elie, and Coffee at the Kings on Cullen beach, are supplying those of us who can’t go anywhere without craving a mellow roast. Meanwhile, foodie heaven is to be found by the sands, when vans like The Cheesy Toast Shack (at Kingsbarns, Fife) pull up. The flask of instant is dead. The world is one big coffee shop.

Beachspotting

Your guide to human beach life and the habitats in which it is found

Elie

This picturesque Fife fishing village is where puff-breasted Edinburgh New Towners and other wealthy city birds migrate in the sunny months, and can be found paddleboarding and eating delicious crepes and pizzas from Chantilly Bleu, a blue van parked by the breakwater. Poorer holidaymakers may visit, but Elie is more the natural habitat of the rich. Next door to the Earlsferry Links golf club is the most expensive street outside the top three cities, in Scotland.

Dunbar

In commuting distance of the capital, you may be lucky enough to spot the crested stone stacker, or possibly evidence of their presence in the form of towering constructions of pebbles dotted along the shoreline. Mostly artists, and other creative types. This species is now increasingly to be found on many other beaches across Scotland.

Troon

One of the most phenomenal beach migrations is that of the Buckfast Teen to this Ayrshire beach during particularly hot days. They arrive in their hordes on trains bringing beer and other alcoholic beverages, leading to scenes of drunkenness and chaos. Mainly these are youngsters, teenagers and young adults, and crowds can reach as many as 1,500. This is somewhat of a regular feature that the police are used to – happening several times a year depending on the weather patterns – and has earned Troon the nickname “Scotland’s Magaluf”. Luckily, for these migrators, Troon is much closer than Magaluf.

Sands Of Morar

The Digital detoxer is often to be found during summer holidays on this uncrowded beach, perched over a pile of gathered sticks trying to light a fire with a flint, while berating themselves for not having charged their phone, and mourning the fact that there will be no picture of this serene scene to post on Facebook.

Thurso East

That magnificent beast, the Surfcatcher is sometimes to be spotted among the huge breakers that crash onto the shore at Thurso East. They are drawn here by its reputation as one of the best, but coldest, surf spots in Europe. Also to be found at Pease Bay and on Tiree and Islay.